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Oracle Thinks Google Owes $6.1 Billion In Damages
An anonymous reader writes "When Oracle acquired Sun in 2009, the company got its hands on a lot of desirable technology. While OpenOffice may have fallen by the wayside, Oracle isn't about to let the Java programming language and its associated patents remain untouched if they can generate some additional revenue. In fact, the company is currently in the middle of a legal battle with Google over those patents that could potentially net Oracle billions and leave Android crippled. In August last year Oracle sued Google for infringing Java patents and copyright by developing Android. Oracle argues that Android uses technology derived from Java and therefore infringes multiple patents. It wants compensation, but with most court documents and details not publicly available, it's hard to know specifics. However, new documents made available late last week revealed just how much Oracle thinks is an acceptable damages payment for Google to make. According to an expert Oracle hired, Google could be looking at a bill between $1.4 billion and $6.1 billion for its alleged infringements."
1. Buy Oracle
2. Sack those who are responsible for the suit.
3. Open Java to the Public Domain
4. Sell Oracle.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
All my troubles seemed so far away....
So basically Oracle thinks that Google is expecting to spend about 6.2 Billion dollars to pay it's lawyers and is hoping they see it would just be cheaper for them to license the technology from Oracle.
Please oh please let Google fight this and win. Not because I love Google, but because I hate Oracle.
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
Isn't this a standard tactic, ask for some obscenely high figure and then settle for much much less?
Know anything about Larry Ellison? He thinks he's a Samurai. You have underestimated his determination to bring Google to their knees.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The former head of RedHat's legal team took over groklaw.
Work bio at MMWD
Unless you want to develop on a platform that utilizes automatic garbage collection. You know, for security reasons?
Fuck Ellison. I hope he gets run over by a fucking bus.
If I was in charge of a software company, I'd think very, very hard about using something other than Java for any future projects. This lawsuit will quite possibly bite Oracle in the ass over the long term.
I doubt Google would infringe on someone else's patents. That would be evil, and that's not how Google rolls.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
From the Groklaw article: "Cockburn Offers No Meaningful Analysis Regarding Copyright Damages"
That just about sums it up. Oracle shouldn't be picking a fight with Google; they should be thanking Google for helping to spread general Java know-how and promoting it on their phones, even if they've found a way to evade the licensing fees by using a 3rd party JVM.
Nokia has just started a partnership with Microsoft, so Windows Mobile and Bing Search will probably be their standard platform, with Visual C# as the primary language. Blackberry still uses Java, but they're going down the tubes as fast as Nokia. Meanwhile, Apple continues to prefer Objective C. That leaves only Android as the major handheld platform for any flavor of Java.
If Oracle wishes to spread Java on the handheld, they could maybe start by not suing the maker of Android. They should instead be negotiating with Google, trying to integrate Oracle services into Android, maybe offer Google a good deal on a fully licensed JVM that performs better than Dalvik. Wasting millions of dollars on lawyers and risking a huge schism with Google hardly seems worth it.
Microsoft is Google's rival; Microsoft is Oracle's rival. Increasingly, Apple is Google's rival. Maybe the two should get together and unite against Microsoft (and Apple, which has little invested in Oracle's product line). Stupid lawsuits, wasting everyone's time and money. How many programmers could they have hired for the amounts they're spending and will spend on this ridiculous effort?
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Offset by saving some of us from C++.
And I hear that Google has a lot of Python running in-house already. But if fewer CPU cycle per function performed is the goal for low power mobile devices, why not just plain old C?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
PJ is still backing the site, and keeping an eye on things, but Mark Webbink (from Red Hat's general counsel) is doing the the articles.. and seems to be as impartial as PJ, though not with the same humour (so far, at least).
The articles there go into details about Oracles claims and Googles counters.
Liquor
Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
Basing Android development on Java was a mistake. It is GNU/Linux, after all, and people should have used what they pleased to develop under Xfce, Meego, Gnome, KDE, or some other relatively well established GUI. Writing apps with C++/Qt would have been easier than Java, with faster executables and smaller memory footprint.
Looks like they want to make all their money back with this lawsuit. 'tis how they roll, I guess.
I see people saying Google should buy Oracle. Not gonna happen, of course. However, Google could buy the Java IP off them if they wanted. Surely, the valuation of Java's IP would be much smaller than the entire valuation of Sun (hw divisions and all), so it may actually come cheaper than fighting this out to the end.
On the other hand, that is probably what Oracle wants to happen. Tbh, I want to see Google fight this and rip Oracle apart in court, because Oracle are fucking asshats no matter how I look at this.
Know anything about Larry Ellison? He thinks he's a Samurai. You have underestimated his determination to bring Google to their knees.
Eating sushi does not make you a Samurai.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
http://golang.org/
Linux is fine, Java is the problem. And they're working on a better language already.
Java made money for Sun (now Oracle) on mobile phones, it was licensed for use there, Google did something clever (or maybe not so much) and released a phone/framework that used a previously accepted implementation of Java (heavyweight versus the 'efficient' phone version) and skirted the licensing issue altogether.
Now Oracle feels that Google owes them licensing for 'phone' java.
So what is Android, a phone with java? or a tiny linux system with a phone card?
I believe this is one reason Apple wants to distance themselves from java, its going to become a headache.
Developers developers developers.
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Are you serious? Are you somehow implying that Oracle isn't in the right?
$6.1 billion in damages? Who the hell are they trying to fool? What did they lose out on: a sizable market share of free?
Oracle suffered no damages whatsoever; most of Java is licensed under the GPL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%28programming_language%29) so even though Google has reimplemented a lot of the functions and basically created a Java clone, Oracle has suffered no damage because it is software they GIVE AWAY FOR FREE.
Now, before you jump on me and correct me by saying it's a patent issue, I understand the distinction. However they gave away the software under the GPL and the GPL stipulates that the software can only be distributed without being encumbered by patents, so either Oracle is right and thus is in violation of it's (Sun's) own terms for Java, and Java needs to stop being redistributed (not an entirely bad idea) or Oracle is in the wrong, and Google has done no wrong by reimplementing the Java language. In any event. Oracle is full of shit; they have suffered no damages whatsoever.
I know Oracle hates free and their RDBMS licensing fees are completely ridiculous (licensed per core x RAM - they don't care if it's a server or if you need a seat for a development or QA lab workstation they license it based on what a given CPU "could" theoretically handle) but they fucked up; if they hate free software they should not have purchased Sun in the first place. Sun's processors were "open source," their office suite was, they opened up most of Java, and the OSes they offered (Linux, and SunOS/Solaris was eventually opened as well), and so on.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Note the updates from Groklaw. (link to article)
Groklaw also identified this as FUD, also known as "trying the case in the newspapers".
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
This is like the tax debate.
Eventually that 'popularity' has to translate into revenue.
Sure the could give away Java and it would be hugely popular. But "Hugely Popular" doesn't make them any money. 0% of infinity is still $0.
Currently Google is paying $0 for each java license. If Java just becomes "The android language" and they continue collecting $0 why should they care.
It's kind of like the people who try to use photos without the photographers permission. "Hey but you're getting free exposure." "You know what's better than free exposure? Buying stock photos." Exposure is only worth something if it translates eventually into sales.
That would explain why all my searches for Oracle on Google today keep redirecting me to goatse.cx.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
First of all, cash isn't the only method for corporate acquisitions. The other one is that they buyer can trade their own equity for the purchase; "I'll give you n shares of my stock for each m shares of yours." This can be combined with cash, but cash is part of the buyer's market cap too, so to estimate one company's capacity to buy another, you look at the market cap, not at the cash reserves. GOOG are 155.99B, so they'd still have to give away more than half of their company to get half of Oracle.
Second, when a company is interested in buying a second one, they usually have to pay premium to convince the target's owners to sells. Buying Oracle would cost more than Oracle's market cap—or more precisely, a serious intent to buy Oracle would drive up Oracle's price.
Are you adequate?